There was a big hub-bub surrounding the feel good movie of the month, Heaven is for Real, which conveniently released within days of Resurrection Sunday. A lot of people, like Molly and myself, went on opening night to see the movie. Unlike many of those people, however, we didn't go out of some obligatory sense of Christian duty to support non-secular film. We went because it looked interesting and, more importantly, the tickets were free.
Because to be brutally honest with myself and everyone else...faith-based movies generally suck. I know that doesn't make me the most popular Bible-reader on the block, but I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. They suck.
While the message may be great, the acting is consistently sub-par and restricted to a very limited range of extreme emotions. There's only so much I can take of Kirk Cameron rapidly alternating between rage and a seemingly drug-induced state of bliss. And eventually, they're bound to run out of blonde-haired, blue-eyed children and attractive middle-aged women to cast for supporting family roles that require the extensive quoting of scripture.
But what ticks me off the most about "Christian" movies isn't that the actors are laughably poor. What ticks me off is how they don't even come close to accurately representing Christians.
Flicks like Heaven is for Real don't convey the true gravity of what it means to be a Christian in an ever-declining society, to cling to a dying faith. The directors consistently fail to capture how exceedingly controversial it is to have a relationship with God in a world where toxic levels of individualism and political correctness discourage religion all together.
Believers are portrayed as a cloudy-eyed stereotype. Their lives are perfect, their picket fence is a pristine egg shell white, and every new day is full of abundant blessings. In Christian movie world, the only struggles that exist involve trust issues with God. I hate to break it to you and possibly ruin the big surprise, but none of that is realistic.
Granted, God does bless His people, and Christians do struggle with their faith, but our lives are very much still entwined in earthly matters, and as much as we would like everyone at church to believe life is all rainbows and puppies, that's simply not the case. Believers are not immediately placed in a reality-nullifying bubble upon accepting Christ into our hearts. We aren't granted immunity from human nature and society and this imperfect world we live in.
The internal battle for those movie characters may end in a passionate prayer while gripping a cross necklace, heads bowed at the altar. But the harsh truth is that, when real Christians are on their knees, we're just calling for backup. Because in the real world, the altar is just one of many places where the battle rages on.
The church you see pictured on the big screen is full of smiling faces with "amen"s and "hallelujahs" echoing up into the rafters and triumphantly bursting forth from steeple, but what the cinematographers fail to get in the shot is all the pain in those pews. They can't film every instance where those men and women have been looked down upon because of their faith or judged because some radicals ruined their nation's predisposition about them, despised for every drawn breath and subsequent exhalation of Jesus' name.
They'll never be able to capture the ache etched in the bones of God's battered children who long for home, their real and eternal home.
"Christian" has become a label synonymous with "virgin," with "sober" and "drug-free," with "happily married," with "innocent," with "holy." I cannot express how very misguided the notion that Christians are somehow better than anyone else is. We are not exempt from iniquity or the suffering that goes along with it. We are just as unpardonably sinful, just as irreparably broken, and just as inexcusably human as everyone else on this earth.
But the difference? The thing that sets us apart? The reigning truth that makes it all worthwhile?
We have a perfect lamb to pardon us, a master healer to repair us, and a loving God to forgive our imperfections.
Perhaps, that's why Hollywood just can't get it right. Because there's no drama or documentary or actor or writer or speaker who could ever fully explain what makes believers different. Why, you ask? Because no drama or documentary or actor or writer or speaker will ever be able to fully explain the awesomeness of our God.
No comments:
Post a Comment